The Murderer Vine

by Shepard Rifkin

  I sat in the mud and put the sneakers on. My fingers were trembling. I couldn’t even tie the laces. I turned and butted my head against the piling. A little pain would take my mind away from whatever it was contemplating and force it to dwell on mundane things like pain and how to tie shoelaces effectively.

  Here is where you make the mistakes, I said to myself. Slow Down. Don’t try to get away fast. Stick around. Sit and think. Think.

  I folded my arms on my knees and leaned my forehead against them. I could feel my arteries throb in my upper arms. I must have had a pulse rate higher than a hummingbird’s. I took several deep breaths. I thought about diving off the aft deck of my new cruiser into the Caribbean through the clean, green, translucent water down to the bottom. The wave patterns of the surface would be transmuted into quivering lines that would oscillate across the white sandy bottom. I would spin onto my back and look up at the hull of my boat and the bottom rung of the ladder over the stern.

  I sighed and lifted my head. I had shifted down to a lower heartbeat. All right. What am I doing wrong? The answer came: your sneakers.

  Of course. Footprints all over again. I took them off and knotted the laces together. I slung them around my neck like a necklace.

  What else? Now I was thinking calmly. What else?

  I didn’t move for thirty seconds. Nothing else.

  Good. I unscrewed the air valve on the mattress. I rolled it up slowly. The air hissed out under pressure. It sounded like an enormous snake and I didn’t care. I wasn’t worried about snakes. It was funny, but I didn’t give a damn anymore. It was as if I didn’t care really about anything anymore.

  I put the wet towel inside the mattress. I hung the Kim over one shoulder and slung the machine gun over the other. I wasn’t going to throw it in the river so close to the shack. They were bound to drag around it and maybe even send down a skin diver.

  I climbed up on the walk. I wasn’t sure whether I had touched the railing or not when I came up the first time. I went inside the shack, not looking at the bodies. I took the dish towel and wiped the railing wherever I might have touched it. I put the dish towel back. It was then I realized that everyone knew I had been a guest at the shack — why shouldn’t my fingerprints be on the railing?

  It was possible to be overcareful. Easy, easy.

  I padded along the walk and came out at the parking area. I went past their cars — the cars that wouldn’t be driving around at night anymore with mud smeared over the plates.

  The thought of that made me feel better.

  I turned left at the road and began walking toward Alexandria.

  If anyone came along the road, I could get into the bushes and squat out of sight fast enough. As for a possible night-operating snake, I made plenty of noise. Any decent snake would get out of the way, and since no one lived along the road, no one could hear me clumping along. After a mile and a half I put on my sneakers. The ground was packed hard and wouldn’t show anything.

  Half an hour passed. Kirby should be coming along about now. And three minutes later I saw headlights far down the road. I had told her to alternate the up and down beams every five seconds as soon as she hit the river road. They were going up and down. There was no other car in sight.

  I stepped out into the road. She stopped. I had the gun wrapped in the mattress. I put everything in the trunk and got in without a word, I saw that the taillight bulb was still unscrewed. I could drive around at night without anyone spotting my license just as well as they could.

  I dressed as she drove. When we got home, I stayed inside.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Couldn’t be better.”

  “Did you get the information?”

  “Yep. I’m just tired.” I slid back of the wheel.

  “You’re not comin’ in?”

  “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Half an hour?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll have some coffee on. ’Bye, honey.”

  All nice and wifely. Our act would have to go on till we were back in New York, I knew, but I sensed a real concern. Too much concern. And I felt too good when she called me “honey.” Honey, I just killed a few people. Keep your distance, if you know what’s good for you. But how can you know that? At least tonight you don’t have to know. And for tonight I would like to be treated like a nice guy. Maybe for the last time. But that’s the way it goes, Dunne. You made your investment capital. Now lie in it.

  I drove ten miles north. There was a bridge across the river. No one ever went fishing from the bridge. No farmhouses were near. No kids ever parked nearby at night. I parked and opened the trunk. I set the jack outside and leaned the spare tire against the car in case a curious car might come by. I unwrapped the mattress and with a length of heavy wire I lashed one of the tire irons to the gun very strongly. I left about three feet of the wire sticking out. I whirled it over my head a few times like one of those gaucho bolas they use on the Argentine pampas, and when I had wound up a lot of energy in it, I let go. It sailed in a nice long arc and made a neat splash about seventy-five feet away.

  First prize in the Night Olympics, shotputting, to J. Dunne, New York City.

  I wired the bloody towel to the other tire iron and sent it sailing after my first contribution.

  I was back in Okalusa in fifteen minutes. I went upstairs with the recorder.

  She had the air conditioning on. Standing beside my chair was a tall glass of iced coffee and a thick roast beef sandwich. I ate like an animal. When I was finished, she poured out another coffee.

  “Put some bourbon in it, will you?”

  She seemed surprised. I didn’t like to drink when I was working. She poured a jigger.

  “More.”

  “More? But I put in a jigg — ”

  “Will you put in more?”

  I drunk it without stopping.

  “Rough recording session?”

  “Don’t talk.”

  She got up and filled the glass with straight bourbon.

  “Hey!”

  “Bottled in bond.”

  What the hell, why not?

  I drank it in ten minutes. She sipped some in her glass. The roast beef kept it from hitting me instantly, but I could feel it beginning to numb the back of my neck. It made me feel sleepy and relaxed. I didn’t think I would be able to sleep, but now I knew I could. She was leaning above me.

  “You smell muddy. Want a shower?”

  I nodded. She went in and adjusted the hot and cold faucets so that when I stepped in, it was just right.

  “Hey there, Georgia girl,” I yelled, “this is perfect!”

  “I’m the puffect executive secretary.”

  “Executive” was too close to “execute.”

  I stood there silently in the shower.

  “Oh, Christ,” I muttered. “Oh, Christ. Oh, Christ.”

  “Did you say somethin’?”

  “No. No. Just wondering where the soap was.”

  She handed me a fresh bar through the curtains.

  I scrubbed my hair.

  “Better?”

  “Much.”

  Her hand came through the curtains again, with a tall glass. I took it but I forgot to shut off the shower. I watched it as it filled with water.

  It was funny. Very few funny things had been happening that night. I began to laugh. The more I laughed, the more I realized that it wasn’t really funny. It was only mildly amusing. But the thought that I was laughing at something that wasn’t funny seemed funny, too.

  “What’s funny?” she demanded.

  “It got filled with shower water.”

  Her arm came through and took the glass. A minute later she was back.

  “Put out your hand,” she said.

  I did. She took it and guided it up to her breast. She was naked. I pulled her into the shower and we kissed. It must have lasted over a minute.

  She murmured in my ear, “Why are we vertical?”

  “Wha
t?”

  “Shut off the damn shower,” she said. “We’re not salmon in the spawning season.”

  Later she fell asleep with her chin on my shoulder and one arm across my chest. The bed lamp was low and on her side of the bed. It made the tiny golden hairs on her forearm glow like peaches. She was smiling in her sleep.

  I was not asleep and not smiling. I couldn’t understand why not.

  Hadn’t I just made love to the woman I had been wanting to make love to for weeks?

  And hadn’t I just made half a million bucks?

  39

  Some fishermen found the bodies next day.

  I was twenty-three miles west of Okalusa driving out to tape some old dirt farmer’s reminiscences when the news flash came over the radio.

  I finished the day as if it were any other day. We would have to hang around Okalusa for a little while before we left. Leaving too soon would not look too good. Someone smart might make a connection. The farmer was named Strickland. He hadn’t taken a bath for days and his feet stank.

  I drove back. Kirby had left a note saying she was out shopping. It was hot. I stripped and showered. It was hard to believe that last night I had had company there.

  When I was still showering, she came home. I came out and dressed in khakis and a cotton shirt.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper. The banner headline read: SHERIFF AND FOUR MILLIKEN COUNTY MEN MURDERED. I poured myself some iced coffee and sat down. She had unbuttoned the top button of her blouse. From time to time she looked at me and then lowered her eyes.

  I had put on the air conditioning. In a few minutes the apartment would be cool enough to make love in. But I wouldn’t even go near her. I once talked to the public executioner of New Mexico. He told me that the day of an execution his wife made the children stay home from school. Even if it was a rape-torture murderer that was getting it. And she wouldn’t go to bed with him. Not for a few days. “What the hell for?” he wanted to know.

  Maybe the executioner was a public scapegoat. Maybe everyone dumped their hatred for the murderer on him. Maybe everyone felt that maybe even a murderer shouldn’t be murdered. I should have gone on with the discussion instead of leaving for a date I had with some girl. I might not feel so confused and irritated right now.

  She got up and put the groceries away. I picked up the paper. The police were working on a lead. They were convinced it was a black militant action. CORE headquarters in Jackson was suspected of complicity. So was the NAACP in Okalusa. Also suspected was a radical student group in the University of Mississippi, who hated a man who was responsible for law and order in Milliken County, and who had died preserving it.

  In other words the cops didn’t know a damn thing. I tossed the paper aside. I had caught her looking at me several times when she thought she was unnoticed. It was the kind of look you give to a previously friendly dog who has just given you a vicious bite.

  I stood up suddenly. She took an involuntary step backward.

  I remembered, years ago, when I was on the force, I had gone up into a slum tenement in Harlem. The neighborhood bully had picked on some smaller man and beaten him up. Later that night there was a knock on the door, and when he opened it, he got an ice pick right in the eye and into the brain. He fell dead on his doorstep. I stepped over him and made sure that nothing was touched until the medical examiner had come.

  While I was talking to the dead man’s wife, their six-year-old daughter, who had been awakened by the commotion, came into the room rubbing her eyes. There was a big yellow and black bruise on her right cheek and right forearm.

  She stood yawning in her pajamas. I didn’t want her to see her old man with the ice pick sticking up out of his open eye, so I decided to tell her in a nice way to go back to bed.

  I got in front of her, blocking her father. “Look, honey,” I began, and I reached out a hand to pat her cheek. She flung up an arm and cowered.

  That told me more about her father than any long social worker’s report.

  I made myself another glass of iced coffee. “You want one?” I asked.

  She murmured, “No, thank you.”

  After she had made a wide detour around my chair, I got up and followed her into the living room. She looked at me. Her face was tense.

  “Kirby, I hired you to help me. You helped. You helped a lot, more than I figured. You were worth every cent I offered, and so I’m going to give you the five thousand bonus. I — ”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “You what?”

  “I don’t want it, I said. How much longer do we have to stay here?”

  She was going to get that five thousand. I decided to put it in cash to her account at her bank without her knowledge. By the time she received her next bank statement, she would never be able to find out where I was in order to return the money.

  “Two, three days.”

  “Why so long?”

  She didn’t want to get out as much as I did. What I was worried about was not so much an official arrest. It was a sudden visit by the sheriff’s friends at night and the usual drive to some lonely country spot.

  “I don’t want anyone to connect our sudden departure with anything.”

  We ate in silence. I went out later for a walk. That night she wouldn’t sleep with me. It was no surprise.

  In the morning she said, “I’m goin’ to have mornin’ coffee with Mrs. Garrison. An’ I’m goin’ to tell her how terrible it is, that nice sheriff ’n’ all. ’N’ how you were a guest down there at the Club ’n’ you feel awful.”

  “Good. And you can say I’ll be finished with my project on Tuesday, and we hate to leave Okalusa.”

  “A town of happy memories.”

  “Yes.”

  “Evvabuddy’s been so nice.”

  “Yes. Push that angle.”

  “I’ll say you tole me you’d like to come back when you get your Ph.D., ’n’ teach down at Jackson, ’n’ buy us a nice lil ol’ weekend home around heah.”

  I told her to go ahead. She seemed to brighten up at giving a commedia dell’arte performance. She always did when a scene was sketched out for her and the dialogue was left up to her.

  I got into the car. There was nothing to do and I felt restless. I decided to drive to Meridian and see a movie. On the way to the main highway I drove past the sheriff’s office. The front door was draped in black.

  If he had known what I was down there for, he would have killed me without a second’s hesitation. That made me feel a little better.

  The black cloth was draped in nice sweeping folds.

  Well, as they say nowadays, Tough, baby.

  40

  We drove north to Memphis three days later. I parked outside the passenger terminal at the airport.

  “You and I are going to play rabbit,” I said. “We’re going to double back and forth over the country. Take a plane for Chicago. Under some name or other. At O’Hare take the airport bus. Taking taxis is too risky; drivers remember unusual passengers. At Chicago take a train for Milwaukee. Go to the airport and fly to San Francisco. Then take the train down to L.A. Fly to Boston. Then take the train to New York. Always use a different name every time you have to make a reservation. Always do your hair differently. Put it under a hat. It’s too striking. Say only completely normal, ordinary things to people you have to talk to. Stay out of friendly conversations with people on trains and planes. That ought to bury the scent. You should be back in New York by Friday morning. I’ll call you sometime Friday.”

  “All right. You’re not coming with me, then.”

  “They’ll be looking for two people together. I’ll hop around by myself as well.”

  I gave her fifteen hundred dollars.

  She looked down at it. I told her it wasn’t her pay, it was expense money.

  “It’s a paper chase.”

  There was a tone in her voice I didn’t like. She didn’t like the idea of being hunted. I should have allowed for th
at and not made that crack about playing rabbit.

  She didn’t move. I saw she was waiting for me to get out and open the door on her side, as I always used to do. “You better get out yourself.”

  That made her smile. It was the first time in three days. She got out and I handed her the suitcase through the car window.

  She took it and set it down. “The honeymoon is over?”

  “Kirby. This is where we begin evasive maneuvers. Because about this time is when a smart cop would begin checking out anyone who’d ever been to the club. And he might very well query Toronto. And when Toronto checks us out and reports that we don’t seem to exist, they’ll start phoning state police to hold this car for questioning. And they’ll start checking airports.”

  “Why didn’t they come over to the house?”

  “Because cops trace out the most obvious things first. Because the most obvious things are where the answers usually lie. They’re working on the black militants. They’ll find nothing. Then they talk to everyone who ever had a cross burned on their lawns. Then they begin on acquaintances of the sheriff. I’m an acquaintance. Then they’ll find out that you and I were out late that night. And probably the Garrisons will recall the car coming in late and the shower running. And no one had us over that evening. And we didn’t go to the drive-in movie. A little talk with us might be rewarding. They’ll be looking for a man and woman together. You go that way. I’ll go another. If we go inside here together, someone might remember us. You go in alone and put that hair up under your hat. You’re just another Southern girl.”

  “We’re all named Mary Lou.”

  I wanted to say, no, there’s no one like you anywhere, but she said, “I’ll be around to collect my money. So long, boss.” Then she turned and was gone, in that long-legged stride of hers. Somehow, the further north we came the more her Southern drawl seemed to vanish.